A law intended to boost Vermont's voter rolls by automatically registering residents who are renewing their drivers' licenses has resulted in some anxious moments for green card holders and others who are not able to vote, but were registered anyway.

Michael Smith, director of operations for the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, said Friday he knows of only four people who were affected in this way, but he said the automatic registration system was shut down on Jan. 20 anyway to find and correct the problem.

Smith hopes to again transmit voter data from the DMV to the state Secretary of State's office next week.

"(Information technology) has gone through and looked at all the programs and made some adjustments," Smith said. "Staff members are testing 200 variations of 20 transactions so we can make sure it works."

Green card holder and Burlington resident Luke McHale was one of those affected by the glitch in the DMV system. McHale's wife, Becca, said Thursday her husband was surprised to pick up the mail and find a letter from the Burlington city clerk's office saying he was now registered to vote.

"My husband is not a citizen, we know he's not allowed to vote," Becca McHale said.

Luke McHale immediately called the DMV, which told him to contact the Burlington city clerk's office. Amy Bovee, assistant city clerk, confirmed Friday that she had removed Luke McHale's name as a registered voter.

Smith said he looked into McHale's situation, and found that a car registration address change incorrectly triggered the voter registration — one of the glitches that will be fixed.

McHale and others like him who don't want to be registered to vote will have to opt out on their driver's license renewal applications, as mandated by the law.

Vermont was the fourth state to implement automatic voter registration, after Oregon, California and West Virginia, according to Secretary of State Jim Condos.

Condos expects Vermont to add between 20,000 and 40,000 new voters through the automatic voter registration system, once it completes the four-year renewal cycle for drivers' licenses. He stressed that what happened with the DMV and the automatic voter registration system was simply the result of technical difficulties.

"I know this is a hot button issue these days with what's coming out of Washington," Condos said. "This was an error DMV found in the system. They notified us. We immediately pulled the plug. We're moving forward to fix the system."

Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DanDambrosioVT.

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